1991 BMW 325i Coupe - Build Thread - The end is in sight!

[MaksV]

Ok so another day of work completed. A few notes
-the engine build starts tomorrow morning at 8- all locals are welcome just pm me your phone number for the address - gonna be working all day
-suspension is gonna have ot wait until after my ski trip (leaving on 26) so that should happen after the new year.
-Plan on taking 2 days to do all the engine stuff


Alright as to what happened today. I reassembled the head and adjusted the valve. I was unable to find a solid DIY for the head breakdown/rebuild so I decided to make one inside this thread. Hope this helps people down the road.

Alright here goes.

1. Clean and shiny head - as clean as its going to get


2. Put in the spring pad holder things


3.Put on the new valve seals ( I am not sure how to use the guide)
3a. Gently seat them on top of the whole
3b. use a 12 mm socket to push them into place - they just slide into place - the socket is so you push on the metal body part and not on the soft rubber




4. Reassemble the intake valves

NOTE: this part sucks and takes a lot of time - I ended up modifying the tool to be even more narrow for this. but all in all my least favorite part
I recommend this - put thetool on the springs and compress as much as possible. now take a thick piece of wood, put it on your stomach and lean over the head and use your body weight
to push the spring even further down, this should give you enough space to slip the colletes in but all in all its pretty tight. BE VERY CAREFUL!!! contents under pressure.

4a. Put the valve in place - just slide it all the way in.

4b. Helper spring goes on

4c. Main valve spring goes on top

4d. cap it

4e. use my instructions from above to compress the spring and put the collets in the grooves if you got this apart its pretty self explanatory but difficult to do
4f. final product


NOTE: Do the intake first - they are harder due to spacing. then do the exhaust.

half done



all done


5. Now its time to put the camshaft back in
5a. first we need to put the seals back into the camshaft seal thing
little seal

main seal


5b. Set that aside for a minute and slide the camshaft in


5c.Put the seal on. two 10mm bolts secure it. According to bently they go in at 10lbs. - I just did hand wrench tight


5d. line the gear up - stud to hole - and use a rubber hammer to mount it


5e. Put the gear cover thing back on - It is held by an E14 star bolt - I used a 10mm head to remove the old one and destroyed it. Buy the right head


5f. Maks' professional cam holder tool - this star bolt goes in at 50lbs.


6. time to put in the rockers
6a. break the eccentrics loose - If you havnt done this already 10mm


6b. There are two rods - one for each bank of rockers.
NOTE: They are side specific - meaning you need to make surethe lube holes are inside the rockers - you should not be able to see them at all. Other wise you put it in wrong.
Also there are notches at one end - they go at the end with the gear - there is a little metal gate that goes into them later. THIS ORIENTATION IS IMPORTANT!
Also dont forget to put a rocker on every time you get a cylinder
ALSO make sure to lube it with oil when you put it in - makes it much easier.



6c. Put the little rubber boots in at each end - that slit in the pic is also where the metal gate goes


6d. Put the clips on that hold the rockers in place - note the slit on the rocker rod and the flat part on the clip - they only go one way.

7. Valve adjustment (covered breifly)
7a. Line up the rocker - turn cam to fully unload rocker (this happens a cylinder at a time)
7b. put shim (.010" for cold M20) between eccentric and valve
7c. rotate eccentric until you can barely pull the shim out
7d. tighten nut on side of rocker - repeat steps for all rockers.




almost done (I am missing one clip - No clue what happened to it - gonna pull it off old head tomorrow)



8. Put in the little top oil rail thing



Thats it for today. Tomorrow is gonna be a long day time to read some instructions before going to bed.

[MaksV]

This was a lot of help and a great write up thanx!

just wait till you see whats next :pimp:

1+ The blue carpet is too much IMO. All in all it is a wonderful base to build from!

lol at you guys worrying about carpet when I have an engine and suspension to build. Dont worry it will be black by the end of january hopefully.

[F34R]

Looks like a solid car & you're already off to a good start.

One thing I'd suggest is dying the interior carpet black or dark gray to flow with the seats better.

1+ The blue carpet is too much IMO. All in all it is a wonderful base to build from!

[akinswonder]

This was a lot of help and a great write up thanx!

[MaksV]

Shit! nice work man! keep up the good work

thanks more to come later today.

[matias88e30]

Shit! nice work man! keep up the good work

[MaksV]

so last minute update for, I guess yesterday at this point.

Spent some time on cleaning the actual head itself after its 24 hour soap soak. used the roloc pads - work good.

also checked in on the exhaust valves- it seems nothing can get to them. Ohh well I will give them another 24 hours to soak and am going to reassemble everything tomorrow.

Some pictures - lots of updates later in the day


fresh out of the bath


Aluminum Roloc Pad and holder- total price 25 bucks off ebay for 5 white pads, and one holder


cylinder 1 - this one was not too bad to begin with but we got a lot out of there


I will go over it again tomorrow but this is the best for now


back in your bath


exhaust valves current state

[MaksV]

and I am finally done cleaning the parts of the head. It will be reassembled on Sunday.

I am still waiting on the bit to hold the roloc pads, and then its struck me I should let the head itself soak a bit. so here is my homade tank - some degreaser + water - let that sit for a few days.




clean intake valves



gonna let the exhaust ones sit till Sunday.

[MaksV]

some more new parts:

Volvo MAf and wire - there will be more information on how to do the conversion and tuning when I actually get there - probably early January


aluminum Roloc pads


Koni adjustable rear shocks finally came in


So I got some work done today as well. 3 days in solution and the exhaust valves are still not clean - I really need to start on the engine monday so I really need these babys to clean up - I am going to set up a seperate bath for the intake valves tomorrow so they can soak at the same time. cause sunday night I need to reassemble everything
.

So with nothing important to do I decided it was time to actually inspect the car from underneath. Damn she is a dirty wh0re underneath. I realized that I needed some sway bar bushings- so another call to Steve got me the parts I need to arrive sometime early next week. Anyway here are the pictures.



eek everything is oily


my oil pan - this is why e30's need skidplates- need to place my order.



shit is dead


super shitty oil filter


oil cooler?


ugly stock headers - hopefully have the test headers from Anthony by end of December



destroyed sway bar bushings - got new ones ordered


rear shock assembly


diff is pretty clean


old RTABs - no worry I have new poly ones and new bolts with the camber/toe kit



All in all the car is pretty bad underneath but that was to be expected. I stopped by to get another gallon of BreakClean.

[MaksV]

I used engine degreaser on my cylinder head, brake fluid can be disposed of with your old oil.

brake fluid can be, but I am aksing about brake cleaner....

I have bought some roloc pads and am gonna try that in conjunction with brake cleaner. the issue is not grease but rather carbon buildup.

[SkinnyVT]

I used engine degreaser on my cylinder head, brake fluid can be disposed of with your old oil.

[MaksV]

another little update- Today with the removal of the valve seals (needle nose pliers work great) - I have officially disassembled the entire head - we are now down to one piece of metal. Also after 48 hours the exhaust valves are still covered in carbon which makes me sad - I wll give them another day but I would really like to move forward with a reconstruction of this thing so we can get going. Also I took some time and rebuilt my 19# injectors.

A few notes on injectors:
the rebuild kit from Mr. Injector is nice but it doesnt include the pintle caps (which will break) so I had to go to O'riellys auto parts to get a rebuilt kit from them - 3 bucks an injector - including all o rings and pintle cap - but it doesnt include the filters, which the mr injector kit does. So at the end fo the day I am left over with enough o rings to rebuild another set of 8, 2 extra filters, and no extra pintle caps- I guess Iwill just sell off that stuff later.

pics:



and all done:

[MaksV]

So got some more work done today. This Berrymans stuff really does work but its takes time - like days, not hours to do its magic.

here is the test intake valve I let sit for 48 hours compared to a dirty exhaust valve:


so now I prepped (with a brush) all the exhaust valves to go into solution - they have 3 days of time before I have to do the intake stuff. I figure its going to get as clean as its going to get and thats that. I numbered them by using loops of galvanized steel to indicate what number cylinder they belong to.



now it was time to start cleaning the actual head - starting with the outside
half clean, half dirty


and all clean




and not clean - how do I clean this part? cant use a wire brush so what is the next best tool? I also have no way of dunking this thing and letting it sit




thats it for the work today got home to this

Steve hooked me up with the parts I need to replace the broken rocker


and Anthony@BimmerBrakes hooked me up with a good deal on some stoptech pads and fresh rotors.


thats it for now. Gonna have my last final Wednesday but then the real fun starts.

[MaksV]

well I will be dropping by there to get a $10 bottle jack (that will hopefully hold my engine up while I swap motor mounts) and I will have to grab one of those, and a brake drain botle as well.

[StereoInstaller1]

eh, you are gonna want one on the bench grinder.

It makes cleaning studs mighty easy!

Just get a HF cheapie, should be no more than $10, and you already have a bench grinder.